Fall Back

I'll admit up front that this post is the result of blatant thievery. Carole mentioned last week that she was thinking about ideas for blog posts, came up with the topic of "ask me anything", and invited people to pose questions they were curious about. In the comments Becky asked "What are the fall back recipes you make over and over again? I wish someone would do a post about this so I could get some new ideas. Cooking dinner must happen daily, and variety is not my superpower. I know this is a boring question, but it is something I struggle with daily."

I perked right up when I read that because I experience the same struggle on a daily basis. I thought if I posted some of my own slightly boring and often overused recipes, maybe you would do the same and we could all have a new variety of dishes to answer the eternal question of "what should I make for dinner?" So apologies to Becky and Carole for stealing this, but I'm desperate and tired of making the same things week after week.

I may make this a regular thing, but here are my first five recipes. I make these (or some simplified version of them) probably at least every other week or so. I chose these to start because they come out near the top of what Ryan calls the work/deliciousness ratio. The ideal recipe requires little work but produces something quite delicious, and I think these recipes qualify.

Chicken Pot Pie - I found this recipe a few months ago, have made it several times, and it is delicious. It's not a lot different than most other chicken pot pies, but the filling is made from scratch and I think the heavy cream in it makes it above average. 

Goop Chicken - We call this Goop Chicken because one of the boys once asked me what was in the goop and the name stuck. When a friend first gave me this recipe I thought it sounded slightly revolting. Italian dressing mix, cream cheese, and cream of mushroom soup? But it was something I could easily throw in the crockpot and everyone in our family liked it. That alone made it a worthy recipe. there have been fights at our house about not getting enough goop, so I almost always make it with three cans of mushroom soup, two packages of Italian dressing mix, and 8 oz. of cream cheese. I don't even care about the chicken (I just put chicken breasts in the crockpot and pour the goop mixture over them), I like goop on rice just fine.

Sausages with Peppers and Onions - This is another recipe that is easy to prepare. Just chop up peppers and onions, sear whatever sausages you like and place on top, and cook in the crockpot. Sometimes I use beer if I've got it, but I've also used water or cider and they work equally well.

Bacon Wrapped Cheesesteak Meatloaf - This recipe may look a little fussy, but I make an easier modified version of it. I season hamburger or ground venison, pat it into a rectangle, put provolone in the middle and roll it up. I usually put a few slices of bacon on the outer top, but rarely wrap the meatloaf in "a lovely bacon jacket".

Loaded Shepherd's Pie - Everyone in my family likes shepherd's pie, but one day Ryan said it needed more flavor. This recipe is proof that most things are made better by adding cheese and bacon. 

So there you have it, five of the fallback, foolproof, recipes I use with ideal work/deliciousness ratios. Please, please let me know about one (or more) of your own fallback recipes in the comments and rescue John and my family from eating the same thing night after night!

Time to Make the Donuts

I don't know why my brain is cluttered with old Dunkin Donuts commercials, but it is and I wanted to share in case you were born after this masterpiece aired in the 1980s. My donut pan was delivered yesterday afternoon, so it was time for me to make the donuts.

I used this recipe for my first try.

It took just a few minutes to mix the batter and get the donuts into the pan. This recipe is supposed to make eight donuts, but I made such a mess with my handmade piping bag (a plastic bag with the corner snipped off) that I only got six, but that was perfect for my pan. The batter is thick and delicious. 

They bake for only 9-10 minutes so I had a half dozen donuts in about the same time it would have taken me to drive to Dunkin Donuts. The only change I made to the recipe was in the amount of melted butter and cinnamon-sugar used to coat the donuts. The recipe advises one-half cup of melted butter (I used just two Tbsp.), one cup of sugar mixed with one tsp. cinnamon, but I used only three Tbsp. sugar with about one tsp. of cinnamon. My quantities were plenty. 

Six delicious cinnamon-sugar donuts!

I'll have to be careful because these were very easy to make and quite delicious. I definitely don't need to eat donuts every day, but it's nice to know I can make a batch to enjoy occasionally (after I do yoga or take a good long walk)!

My Very Own Greenhouse

(of a sort). My mother loved and collected Dept 56 porcelain houses, so much so that my sister and I were left to deal with over 400 of them after she died. She had gotten some for me as Christmas gifts, but I am not much of a collector of tchotchkes, so I don't think I ever displayed them. My boys were small and fragile porcelain houses don't do well with little boy hands trying to play with them. (Someday I'll tell you about the T. rex, velociraptor, and pterodactyl that visited Jesus in the manger.)

But now the boys are grown, I've sold all the excess houses, and kept a few special ones. I don't decorate nearly as much as I used to, but these pieces are important to me and don't take me too long to set up. 

There is the North Pole Weather & Time Observatory, the Candy Cane & Peppermint Shop, Tassy's Mittens duplex with Hassel's Mufflers & Woolies, along with some elves, Mrs. Claus and Santa, and Santa's sleigh and eight tiny reindeer.

But my favorite piece is Mrs. Claus' Greenhouse. It was one of my Mother's last gifts to me, and I really love all the details,

like the snow in the corner of the panes, the clay pots piled outside, and the poinsettias and plants growing inside the greenhouse. 

Even at my advanced age, I can almost imagine that I can fit inside and garden along with Mrs. Claus. I'd love to have a real greenhouse so I could have the ideal conditions and space for all the plants I'd like to grow, but Mrs. Claus' Greenhouse is the next best thing!

Much More Than Just Old Hunks of Metal

I don't know if you remember these original and very cool bookmarks Justin made for me for Mother's Day, but it turns out he was also working on something else. It just took a little longer.

I present ... my lock. 

I really wish you could see this in person because it's a work of genius. (I may not be an impartial judge.) Justin took an old rusty lock that he found in an old burn pile, dismantled it, soaked the pieces in rust remover, polished all of the pieces with a wire wheel, put the lock back together, and then figured out a way to attach a Plexiglas door to the whole thing so you could see and admire the workings. 

You can open the door up with screw in the center, see how the lock mechanism works, and move the levers, slide the sliding bits, and generally marvel at both the lock and my youngest son's ingenuity and creativity. It looks like it's been painted, but that patina is what remained naturally after Justin painstakingly removed all the rust. We have old locks just like this on most of the doors in our house, so it's great to be able to understand what's going on inside when I turn the knobs or use a key to lock our doors.

It has pride of place on my kitchen table, right in front of where I sit so I can see, admire, and play with it every day. I love that Justin understands my admiration for old hunks of metal and has the imagination and cleverness to bring his interesting ideas to wonderful fruition. I love my old lock, and I'm willing to be nobody else is lucky enough to have one like it!

This Guy ...

  ... is 27 years old today. He's an avid outdoorsman, and since it's fishing season, here are some photos of Justin fishing through the years. 

He still has that giant fishing trophy. 

Justin started putting together his own lures (and they worked).

Little kid, big fish.

Fishing the Blackfoot River in MT

Fishing in Glacier National Park

He doesn't always catch big fish. 

This was a first, two fish caught on one lure in TX!

Another exciting day, Justin caught an incannu in the Yukon!

Saltwater fishing in NJ

Justin will be celebrating on Saturday by heading to the Jersey shore to fish for sharks, so hopefully, there will be more photos of Justin and his catch. 

It Was a Good Weekend

I have many things to be grateful for on this Monday morning, and a lot of them happened over the weekend.

Since the weaving-in fairy never showed up, I finally wove the ends in on my Nervous Breakdown Hitchhiker. This produced a lot of colorful clippings that I put out for the birds.

I bought some generic graham crackers and was happy ecstatic to find that they were ~1.5x as thick as name brand ones. I like to dunk graham crackers in my tea, and these are just perfect for dunking without absorbing too much tea and falling apart in my mug. 

I noticed flower buds on my little kitchen sink orchid.

I enjoyed knitting while watching My Dog Skip. (It was a great movie, and just what I needed to see.)

I had enough newly sprouted mint for the first batch of mint tea this spring.

I received two lovely, unique, and hand-crafted bookmarks from Justin for Mother's Day.

Several of you that have listened to Apeirogon have told me that you also read the book. I've ordered a copy so I can enjoy my favorite bookmarks in my favorite book. 

I enjoyed a wonderful weekend despite coronavirus, and I hope you did, too! 

Flowers ...

... are magical, on Monday and every day.

This past weekend I was blessed with lots of flowers blooming indoors.

 One amaryllis,

a second amaryllis,

a completely unexpected bonus Christmas cactus blossom,

and some hot pink Easter cactus blooms. 

I said a little thank you each time I passed them for my fulsomeness of flowers! I hope you also enjoyed something a little bit magical in your weekend. 

Better Times

Kym's link yesterday to virtual strolls through Longwood Gardens prompted me to reminisce about some of my own visits to Longwood Gardens. Reliving some of the lovely memories of seeing all the beautiful things growing there cheered me up on a day with driving wind and rain (we also had a leak, the side door fell off the hinges, there was a tornado watch but no tornadoes in my area thank goodness, and my chicken leaked all over the kitchen floor which meant I had to mop, but I digress). Some photos:

Longwood Gardens was my Mom's favorite place at Christmas time and we got her a membership for many years. It's stunning at Christmas, in spring, indoors, and out. 

You know what else cheered me up? Based on the comments on Kym's post, the possibility that I could maybe meet up with quite a few knitters at Longwood Gardens when all of this is over. It's a dream I'm holding on to!

Made by Hand

A long time ago I started telling you about some of the things around my house that have been Made by Hand. I've found myself without much to write about today, so I decided to return to this topic and tell you about a special object.

Back when my kids were in high school, they both took ceramics as electives, and I was the lucky recipient of some very nice pieces. They're things I truly like and appreciate, and not just because my kids made them. In Ceramics I, they had to use some specific processes, but could use them in whatever way they chose to make whatever they wanted. The process specified for this piece was to make a coil pot, and Ryan chose to make a DNA candle holder. 

The coil technique is pretty obvious, and the green-dark blue and orange-light blue glazed parts represent the adenine-thymine and guanine-cytosine base pairs in the DNA double helix. I thought this was a clever and unique approach to the coil pot technique, and I still display it on my kitchen window sill ten years later.

I also use it often, especially in the fall as the light wanes. The candle holder fits a Yankee Candle jar perfectly and means so much more than something I might have purchased. A decade later I'm still delighted that Ryan made me something so wonderful by hand.